


What It Means To Not Be Lonely

by inadistantworld



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Deal with a Devil, Devil Percy, Erinyes Percy, F/M, Love Confessions, Percy has Wings, Persephone/Hades-esque deal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 02:03:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13824150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inadistantworld/pseuds/inadistantworld
Summary: Vex goes to the Nine Hells to make a deal to save her brother from the clutches of the Raven Queen. She finds a disgraced Erinyes named Percy who offers to help her so long as she promises to spend a month with him for every three she spends at home on her plane.And as love stories often go they begin to feel something more than simple friendship.





	What It Means To Not Be Lonely

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by some art by alienfirst/luciferase on twitter/tumblr. She did a quick sketch of Feywild Vex and Demon Percy which got me thinking about maybe adding something to my Hunter/Hunted fic, then while looking at different demons I saw the Erinyes and remembered all their pictures of Celestial Percy and what can I say, I love her art and I like wings and making deals with devils. Holy hell I hope this isn't shit.  
> Thanks for reading, folks
> 
> Notes I wrote when trying to catch ideas before I forgot them???  
> Can't sleep on your back with wings  
> Where do you put your wings when you're doing the do?  
> Smoke (repeated throughout my notes randomly??)  
> during one of the smutty bits, "WINGS WINGS WINGS, SHE SEES THE WINGS" (I did not remember what this meant and I still don't know but I think I got something close??"

Vax had made a deal. Sold his faith to a goddess in order to save his twin’s life. The specifics didn’t matter, all that mattered was that Vax gave his faith and worked tirelessly in her name, and not more than two years later the Raven Queen was taking him away. Vax had served her purposes and now he was going to die and leave her and all because of this goddess—no that was wrong—all because of Vex.

Vax’s unstoppable death was did not come out of nowhere, there was almost a month where Vex lived with that knowledge before it was almost time. But Vex wasn’t ready. All their lives it had been just the two of them. There was nobody else she had and she wasn’t going to let go of Vax because of a mistake she made.

So one night she found someone who could send her where she needed to go. She had heard of the City of Dis in the Nine Hells, she knew the type that lived there. She’d never been, it wasn’t exactly a hot vacation spot or a place where someone would send to mercenaries. As much as she wanted to stay by her brother’s side because she never knew which moment would be his last she was convinced that this would be the best way to save him. The _only_ way to save him.

It turned out that making a deal with a devil was more difficult than she thought it would be.

Well, that was a lie.

It seemed like everything that could hold a pen was eager to make a deal, but the cost was enormously high and few of them would go against the goddess herself. “Stay here forever, let me suck your soul through your eyes, and I can give your brother an extra twenty minutes of life.” Needless to say Vex was not a fan for a multitude of reasons. She wished she had brought Trinket with her in hopes of scaring them or just to give her a little extra comfort, but she had left him with Vax just in case Vax needed the help or…Vex didn’t make it back.

But she didn’t think about that part, she could only go forward with the confidence that she would get exactly what she wanted.

How she stumbled into this shop she could not say. Perhaps it was simply next in line, perhaps someone had pointed her towards it, or perhaps it was the strings of fate. Whatever the reason, she found it.

The store was brighter than the others had been. Still sweltering hot, the stone still dark and angry looking, and still feeling exactly like a store one would find in the Nine Hells. The stone shelves had shiny metal trinkets on them, some were perhaps toys while others were definitely weapons. She saw swords and crossbows and things with spikes. She also saw an elegant and gorgeous curved weapon that she couldn’t figure out how it worked. From what she could guess was that she held it and pointed, but after that she didn’t know, all she knew was as beautiful as it was it was probably the most dangerous thing in the room.

“You have a good eye. It is an invention of mine, a gun. If you are looking to kill something it will certainly do the trick.” The voice was smooth with an almost familiar accent, though it still held the edge of the accents she had heard in the Nine Hells.

Vex turned her head to the voice to see a tall, wiry man with white hair, blue eyes behind gold rimmed spectacles, and huge, feathered white wings. He looked more like an angel than a shopkeeper in the City of Dis, known for its slave trade and general lack of anything moral and good.

His wings flexed out slightly as she stared and his lips twitched up into a smirk. “I must be the only white winged Erinyes you’ve had the pleasure of meeting,” her eyes widened at the word Erinyes. Descendants of angels thrown from the heavens after falling to temptation and quite high in the hierarchy if her memory served, certainly higher than simple shopkeep. “A shame really, I always hope someone has heard of another. Would you like to hold it?” He nodded to the gun and Vex tore her eyes from him to look at it.

“No,” she walked over to the counter he was standing behind and put her hands on the surface of the stone, ignoring the pain blossoming under her palms.

The Erinyes’s eyebrow arched as he watched her do so and Vex felt her breath catch, he was even more beautiful up close. It only made sense, he still had old angel blood in him. “If not for one of my marvelous inventions, what can I help you with?”

“I need to make a deal.”

He hummed and tapped his chin with his finger as he looked her up and down. “I must say, you don’t look like the kind that normally finds their way to me,” his lips curled into a smirk, “but everyone needs something. What is it you would ask of me?” He reached under the table and pulled out a piece of pristine parchment, a long quill with a white feather that looked like it might have come from one of his wings, and a dark bottle of what Vex hoped in vain was deep red ink.

“My brother to live a natural life. He is the Champion of the Raven Queen and she is coming to take him before I’m ready to give him up. I want you to stall her until he dies on his own without her quickening the pace.” Vex finally took her hands from the counter and dropped them quickly to her sides, hoping he hadn’t see the red blisters on her hands and she quietly cast Cure Wounds on them.

He nodded and began writing in long, curving script. “I am surprised you made it to me. Certainly I am not the only one who you’ve tried to strike a deal with.”

“You would be surprised how few of you are unwilling to go against a goddess such as her,” Vex muttered darkly, “and those who do ask for too much.”

He cast a glance upwards at her and his hand paused. It was then that Vex noticed wisps of dark smoke coming from where his hand held the quill. “Do they, now?”

Vex was a master of making deals and that was something she had struggled with in her attempts. The few she had found who would agree to it refused to haggle, which was ridiculous because of the things they asked for. Asking for the moon only worked if you were willing to settle on something smaller. Which was why she hesitated a moment before answering, “Of course I love him but the whole point is that I get to spend my life with him.”

“And what would you ask if you were in my position?” He cocked his head to the side and a teasing smile lifted the corners of his lips. It was terribly attractive and distracting but Vex could give as good as she got.

She licked her lips and gave him a knowing smirk, “You know what they say, the first to name a price loses.”

“You sound quite familiar with the rules of trade.”

“I am probably the best bargainer you’ve ever met,” Vex didn’t think of it as bragging, simply the truth.

“Ah, it sounds like I have made a mistake in this then,” there was a light undertone to his voice that said he didn’t truly believe that, “if you’re as good as you say I’m not sure what I’ll get out of this.”

“What is it you want?” Vex didn’t want to tell him so openly but there was very little she wouldn’t do. All she wanted was the time with her brother, as much as she could get. If this man wanted her soul when her brother died, then fine, but she wanted a long life with him first.

“As you said, the first to answer is the loser.” He set his pen beside the paper and stepped around the counter to walk around the shop and look at the things on the shelves. “What is your name?” he asked.

“Vex’ahlia. And yours?”

“Names are quite powerful things, you should not give them so freely,” he picked something up and turned it over in his hands. It was bronze with iron but despite the rather plain material it was elegantly made. It was also very likely dangerous considering the other items that surrounded it.

“Do you plan to do something with it?” She asked her question flippantly but her heart skipped a beat with fear anyways.

He eyes her over his shoulder, “Perhaps I just wish to say it? Vex’ahlia,” he drawled like he was tasting every letter. Then he set the item down and moved on to another. “You may call me Percival, or Percy if you desire something shorter.”

“Is it your name?” She asked.

“Perhaps,” Percy answered. “What do you do? You are obviously a woman of the world, how do you survive in it?”

“I am an archer. And I have a bear.”

“A bear?” He chuckled, “Not many half-elves can say they have their own bear.”

“We saved each other. Like I hope to save my brother,” she pressed the conversation forward.

Percy seemed to shrug it off with the shifting of his bright, white wings, “I believe you are asking more from our arrangement than yours with the bear, but it poses an interesting idea. Your brother? What does he do?”

“Picks locks mostly,” _slides daggers into the backs of those who deserve it_ , she added silently. “He works for the Clasp, they’re—”

“Everyone has heard of the Clasp, dear, even here.” He called her dear so casually she almost missed it, but still it caught at her ear like a whisper of another life. “And he is the Champion of the Raven Queen? Impressive. He must be quite special.”

“He’s my brother,” her voice was sharp, a warning to watch what he said next. The fierce protectiveness of their relationship was not only in Vax, Vex was just as likely to take on the world to protect him as well.

“Which is why you came to me,” he looked at her again. He held something unusual with many moving parts in his hand. “Do you blame yourself?”

“That’s none of your business,” she scoffed.

He hummed again, “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Not many of you make it to me, and those who do usually have boring requests. But I like yours. It’s quite interesting. As for your end of the bargain—” he had taken two steps back to his counter when Vex interrupted him.

“Why are you here?” The words slipped from her lips before she thought to stop them. “I mean, this shop isn’t exactly where one would expect to find an Erinyes. Aren’t you usually…better than this?” She shrugged, not sure what else to say.

Percy was frozen with one hand on the counter. “Yes,” he said calmly but his eyes looked very far away before he shook himself back to the present. “You have keen eyes. You have never seen another Erinyes with white wings before, have you?” Vex didn’t answer, they had been through this already. “Neither has anyone else. They believe that I might be a Celestial,” he shook his head with a dark smile, “That I have come to steal their secrets and infiltrate their society. If that is the truth I am doing very poorly. But it has gotten me here,” he raised his hands to show off his shop, “It is has cast me so far down the ladder that only the most desperate ever find me. Usually too desperate for my tastes. I haven’t made deals in a very long time.”

He shrugged and went back to the parchment, wiped the nib of his quill off and went to dip it in the…red ink again. But despite his easy movements and the casual way he told Vex this she could hear the empty bitterness underneath, which caused a small ache in Vex’s chest. It felt familiar, to be surrounded by people almost like him, for him to have a reason to be higher in his society but still be cast aside and looked down on. How long had they looked at him like he was at best an inconvenience and at worse a danger? “It must get lonely,” she said, once again speaking before thinking. Vex never thought she would be sympathizing with an Erinyes who she was likely about to sign her soul away to.

His hand paused over the page and he looked at her with a curious look. “I suppose. No more lonely than any other kind of existence though.”

Vex thought about her twin and her bear and couldn’t imagine the kind of life Percival was living. “Lonelier than most,” she said quietly, almost to herself.

Her brother made jokes but Vex was one of the most empathetic people he had ever met, and if he had seen her with this dark and lonely man he would not have been surprised at all.

“Lonelier than yours?” He looked back to the page and slowly began writing again.

“I have my brother and my bear,” she said honestly.

“And no one else? That doesn’t sound like very many,” he pointed out without looking at her.

“It’s all I need.” It was all she had ever needed.

He nodded and finished writing in silence. Then he turned the parchment around so that she could see it. “I look forward to knowing what that is like.”

Vex’s brow furrowed as she read the terms of the contract. Her request was exactly what she wanted, her brother wouldn’t be taken before his natural death. The wording was nicer, more specific and contract like, but essentially it was exactly what Vex wanted. She hesitated to see what he asked of her, after everything that she had seen so far she doubted it would be good. She considered just signing it without looking, it was quite possible this would be the best deal she would get and she was not leaving the city without knowing her brother was safe. But she looked anyways, she was a haggler in her heart and that meant knowing the terms of her deals.

What she saw was not what she expected. She had expected to give up her soul in a year, to be sold into his service, to see a hundred things she was not willing to do. Instead she saw, in flowery and specific terms, that all he wanted was for her to spend a month in the City of Dis with him for every three months she spent at home. That he wanted a companion. She read it again, looking for something terrible, perhaps he wanted to do terrible things while she was with him, perhaps he wanted her to do terrible things. But there was nothing. It seemed all he wanted was to have her spend time with him.

There was no more to the contract, no more deals she could sign into existence later, no more tempting offers to catch her eye at the end. There was of course stipulations to if one of them didn’t hold up their end of the deal, but there was nothing extra. It was another unusual piece to this encounter.

Percy must have noticed her looking for more because he shrugged and said, “You said you were the best bargainer I would ever meet, I figured we should skip the game and only put what we want on the page, anything else may deter you from accepting. I have a feeling it would be a waste of parchment as well, you don’t seem the type to be tempted by the other things I could put on here. A strong heart is in you, I can tell.”

“What would this entail?” She asked quietly. Selling herself to a man was not something she necessarily looked forward to.

He shrugged, “Whatever it means to not be lonely.”

 

The rest of their conversation could go on, but truthfully it is best left there. It is there that Vex felt something unexpected and unnamable. Perhaps close to pity, perhaps something more like familiarity, perhaps it was almost interest, but even if some of those were close none of them were quite right. It was also in that moment that Percy, who had been very careful to avoid being vulnerable and had worked constantly to keep up a mask, slowly began to let down his guard to this woman for no other reason than she looked at him like she understood. She looked at him like she wanted to help. It was why he had changed the deal at the last moment. Instead of asking for her soul or her service or something typical like that he had looked at her while he was writing and in a rare spontaneous decision he asked for something else in hopes she could do more for him than simply become a slave or a piece of a soul for him to use later.

In the end Vex returned to her brother’s side before he woke for the day (it was surprising how quickly a trip to the Nine Hells went when someone made it known how badly they wanted to make a deal). She didn’t tell him what she had done, she knew at some point she would have to but she needed to find out how first.

Percy just continued to work. He did set aside time to make a room ready for her, but for the next three months his life remained relatively unchanged. It was their time together that was interesting.

 

The first month was an adjustment process. The first hurdle was that Vex was not fond of the weather. There was no way to escape from it, no matter what she did she was hot. She was almost jealous of Percy’s wings which gave him an excuse to rarely wear a shirt. She found ways to cope but nothing truly kept the heat from her. Vex was also not totally thrilled that when she left people seemed to think she was Percy’s slave. Percy had told her that it would happen and it would be best not to cause a scene over it, but that he hoped it didn’t affect their time together. For the most part it just made Vex glare at anyone who looked her way.

The time they spent together was strangely enjoyable for the both of them. Vex liked to watch Percy work on his inventions, Percy liked watching her practice with her bow. And at the end of the month they were both surprised and unsure of what to say or feel, Percy because he was not used to this kind of relationship and Vex because her contract had not accounted for actually enjoying his company.

And when she left Percy went to his workshop and began to make something beautiful, because sometimes that is all a man can do.

When she left the next time he pressed an arrow into her hand and looked off to the side so he didn’t have to see her reaction. Vex didn’t move for a long time and just stared at the heavy arrow that she was sure did more than shoot straight. She carefully put it into her quiver and whispered her thanks because there were few people who would give her a gift like this.

In the next three months Vex’ahlia and her brother met a handful of adventurers and thought maybe it was time to move on from the Clasp. The cleric, Pike, was like a strong but caring older sister, willing to kick someone’s ass to protect her friends but not above drinking them under the table and helping them wiggle in and out of trouble. Grog, a goliath, might not have been the brightest but he was stronger than anyone Vex knew and genuinely fun to be around. When she first met Scanlan she didn’t think she would like the gnome much, she even warned her brother while they were on watch one night that if they left it would likely be because of him, but the bard grew on Vex very quickly and she found that while they weren’t as close as best friends or siblings there was a strong connection, a familiarity between them. Keyleth was the only other half elf in the group, though she was very different from the twins. She was a powerhouse with her magic and when she thought the group was straying from the right side she wasn’t afraid to let them know, which many times was exactly what they needed to hear.

When Vex returned to Percy’s side she told him about her new friends at great length. She was worried it would bother him at first, knowing that her circle was growing, but Percy was eager to hear about her stories and she never once got the idea that he was jealous. He seemed truly happy for her.

The day she was leaving she hugged Percy, which neither truly expected. Percy was stiff in her arms for a moment before he slowly hugged her back. Her arms were hooked under his wings and met in between them. She could feel where his wings began and her fingers gently explored before she realized what she was doing and stepped back.

“Good luck on your adventures,” he said almost warmly, “come back with more wonderous stories.” He pressed another arrow in her hand, they said their final goodbyes, and Vex went home again.

Almost a year passed and the adventurers, now known as Vox Machina (though they didn’t turn their nose up at Heroes of Emon), were closer to family than anything else. And Vex’s relationship with Percy was changing too.

 

Percy was holding his sides as he laughed, “We’re basically gods? She said that?”

Vex was laughing too. At the time she had not laughed, not even close. It had taken over a month for her to find it even a little funny. But now, retelling the story to Percy who was listening to her with the most attentive posture she had ever seen, it was close to hilarious. “And then jumped off a cliff and turned into a goldfish,” Vex confirmed.

His wings shifted as his laugh quieted. “You certainly have been busy, Vex’ahlia.”

“Well, three months is a long time to have adventures.”

“It is a long time, isn’t it?” Percy had begun to realize in the last year that there was something terribly wrong.

Percy was falling in love with Vex.

“What have you been up to though, darling? We’ve talked so much about me but what of you?” Darling. Vex had started calling him darling partly out of habit and partly out of that unnamable feeling that had been steadily growing into something namable.

Vex was falling in love with Percy.

Of course neither were willing to say anything, that was certainly not the terms of the agreement and both of them knew that their lives were not ones where they could love each other. Percy believed Vex was too good for him, her heart was worth more than a devil who had made his own dark deals. Vex believed that Percy couldn’t love someone like her, after all what is a simple half-elf to one of the most powerful kinds of beings there is? What could she offer him? She wasn’t even enough of an elf for her father.

It does not take a particularly clever or observant person to realize that the two of them were being fucking ridiculous.

But what is a love story without the quiet thought of the other deserving more? What is a love story without a little bit of dancing around each other from fear? What is a love story without the lingering glances before they remind themselves that it could never be? What is a love story without the spur of the moment act of love that they can no longer try to avoid that starts the ball rolling?

In all honesty it is probably a love story with a much smoother road.

 

Vex was the one to crack first. It was the end of their month, the same one where she told Percy about Keyleth’s leap to her doom as a very tiny fish. Percy was saying goodbye, giving her another arrow to take on her adventures. She still didn’t notice the way his fingers lingered, brushing against her for just a moment later than he believed he ought to, but when he pulled his hand away this time she leaned up on her toes and pressed a kiss on his cheek. She also lingered a second longer than one would expect. Percy did not notice, he was too busy thinking about how hot his cheek was where her lips touched him.

“Thank you, darling,” she said as she always did but even Percy didn’t miss the quiet touch to it, the something hidden, though he didn’t understand the extent of what it meant he could see start to see that perhaps darling wasn’t just a habit of hers. Perhaps it meant a little more.

Before he could think of something to say or do she had left.

 

Three months was a long time for Percy to think and wonder if he had misunderstood. It was also a long time for him to think about what he wanted and how much longer he was willing to deny himself, especially if she didn’t want him to.

It was also a long time for Vex to quietly moon over him. It was to the point where Vax decided he had to talk to her about it.

“You look like you enjoyed your trip,” Vax said as he braided Vex’s hair. He wasn’t mad at Vex anymore and his relationship with the Raven Queen was more or less the same as it was before, the Raven Queen didn’t blame Vax for it. Of course he still worried about his sister, every time she got ready for her trip he was impossible to get away from. He still entertained the idea of getting her out of her contract despite Vex saying he wasn’t so terrible, in fact that may have been Vax’s least favorite part. She seemed to like going to see this Erinyes.

“It was nice,” Vex tried to bite back a smile, quite unsuccessfully Vax noticed. “He gave me another arrow, a siege arrow this time.”

Vax was quiet for a while. He knew his sister didn’t like when he warned her about _Percy._ It didn’t stop him, but he did try to consider her side. And in his consideration, especially now in this moment, he realized something she still didn’t fully see in herself. “I know I don’t need to tell you to be careful anymore.”

“No, you don’t,” there was an edge to her words.

“You’ve always had a good eye, Stubby.”

She straightened up a little under his hands, “I’m well aware.”

“And after spending this much this time with him…well I trust your judgement.” In truth, Vax still didn’t trust him, not at all. But he did trust Vex and he knew Vex loved him. In the beginning it had been easy to say she didn’t know him, that he was tricking her. Now all he could do was warn her against a broken heart. “You should tell him.”

“Tell him? Tell him what?” Her voice was a little too high at the end to be truly believable. It made Vax smile and shake his head slightly.

“You know what. Every time you come back you’ve got that dopey look in your eyes for a straight week and all you do is talk about what you did. You’re going to make yourself miserable if you don’t. Of course I would suggest someone who isn’t…evil, but it isn’t my decision. And more than anything I want to see you happy, and if you think—”

“He’s nice and I like spending time with him, but it’s not like that Vax,” She said firmly.

He was glad she was facing away from him because she might have pushed him if she saw his smile. “Right, of course.”

But Vex spent the next three months thinking about what she wanted to tell him.

Those three months were both the longest and shortest yet. When Vex was preparing for her journey back she realized that she still didn’t know what she was going to say or what to do. What would happen if he didn’t feel the same?

And when Vex saw him in person again it only made things more complicated. For two weeks she awkwardly started and stopped conversations. Percy would have been offended or worried if he hadn’t spent the last three months thinking about what Vex meant to him and finding signs of what he meant to her.

The last day of the month was the real moment, though. There were a hundred half moments, a hundred times that Vex almost said something or where Percy almost told her everything. But every time they grew close they hesitated and faltered, which led to an almost awkward kind of dance. It was agonizing.

But, as always happens in love stories, the moment finally came.

 

Vex had sworn up and down that she would do it. That she would wake up, go about her day, and before she left she would tell Percy that he was…more than she bargained for. She even rehearsed it silently before she went to bed, and she tweaked the speech after she woke up, and after lunch she added something else, and after dinner she took it back out. And they were getting ready to part ways after their goodbyes and Vex reached out and her fingers wrapped around his wrist to stop him.

“Yes?” He asked, looking down at her hand and then back up to her with a perfectly confused expression.

“I—” she hesitated. Just a moment but it was long enough to chicken out, “I want you to know that I really do enjoy our time together. Contract or none. I like spending time with you,” she dropped her hand to her side again, “You’re a very good friend, Percy.” She called herself a coward and began to leave.

It was Percy’s turn to grab her hand and stop her. When she looked back at him he was standing much closer and there was a smile teasing his lips, “I know what you mean,” he whispered and it felt more intimate than friends who are grateful for one another.

And Percy lifted his other hand to her cheek and he kissed her. He could feel the sharpness of her jaw under his hand, the warmth of her skin, the wisps of hair that had come free of her braid. She leaned up into him, kissing him back with a fierceness that was set Percy’s mind at ease, though it did little to slow his pounding heart.

Percy was the first one to step back and he did so with a sly smile. He held Vex’s hand up and kissed the back of her hand and held it between both of his for a moment before he let go. “I’ll see you in three months, dear.” And then he walked away.

 

She didn’t tell her brother about the kiss but she did tell Keyleth. The druid was enormously excited, despite Percy being a being of evil and deals and sometimes with shadows that drifted around him in unusual ways, and they spent the next three months gossiping about it.

Vex spent three months plotting her power move. Percy had kissed her and left, she felt it was only right to do something similar though infinitely better.

And in three months she returned with a plan.

 

Neither mentioned what had happened for a few days but every time they looked at each other they felt it all over again.

One night Vex retired to her room early.

After an hour or so Percy went to his room and steeled himself. Percy, while not inexperienced in this sort of thing was not in the best practice and when it came to Vex he was generally nervous, gathered a few bottles into a small bag and set the strap on his shoulder. Then he went down the hall to where her room was. He closed his eyes, took on deep breath, his wings twitched nervously, and he raised a hand and knocked twice.

“Who is it?” Vex called out with a smile in her voice.

It relaxed Percy’s shoulders and he shook his head, “It’s me.”

“Percy?” She said with a tone of mock surprise.

“Yes, now open the door, I have something for you.”

The door opened and Percy suddenly became very stiff again (in more than just his shoulders).

Vex was standing naked before him with only her hair falling down her back and off her shoulders to cover some skin, and none of the important bits. Percy forced himself to swallow and to raise his eyes up so he wasn’t staring. Vex simply smirked at him and let her eyes wander shamelessly.

“Vex,” he said with a tightness in his voice and he licked his lips nervously.

“It was quite warm in here, darling, I hope you don’t mind. You said you had something for me?”

He cleared his throat and with shaking hands reached into his bag and pulled out a few bottles. He mindlessly listed off their names and the kind of alcohol they were, but neither were actually paying attention. “But mostly, I just wanted an excuse to see you,” he said, still holding a bottle of what he called Courage in one hand and a snow mead in his other.

“You don’t need an excuse, darling,” she said with a wry smile and she stepped out into the hall. She ran a hand up his chest. He closed his eyes and a soft breath escaped his lips. She moved her hand over his collarbone and neck until she could toy with the soft hair at the back of his neck. “Would you like to come inside?”

Percy could feel her breath against his lips and when he opened his eyes she was so close he was honestly surprised the only part of her touching him were the fingers on the back of his neck, slowly twirling his hair around them. “Yes,” his voice was low and husky and verging on desperate.

Vex kissed him. Their lips were pressed to hard together that Percy thought he might have nicked the inside of his mouth on one of his sharp canines. Her entire body was crushed against his, leaving no space between them, and Percy wanted to drop the glass bottles just so that he could hold her against him, but he settled for kissing her back as passionately as he could without his hands, which was surprisingly passionate.

Vex pulled away and looked at him with a wicked grin. Her lips were cherry red, a pink flush crept up her chest to her neck, her eyes dark with lust, and her chest heaved as she caught her breath. She hooked a finger into the waistband of his pants and puller him into her room.

She took the bottles from his hand and set them on the table as he took the bag with the others off and set it on the floor. And when she turned to him again she just looked at him, taking him in for the first time without feeling the sinking fear mixed with desire she didn’t believe she was allowed to feel.

He was devastatingly handsome. She had known it of course, she’d spent enough time around him and he only wore shirts when they walked around the city because they were complicated and not very comfortable because the backs had to be open to accommodate his wings, but now she could appreciate it. Percy struggled not to blush under her intense gaze but he couldn’t keep his wings from stretching out a few inches and refolding themselves awkwardly.

Vex went back to him and put her hands on his shoulders and slowly ran them down his arms, feeling the muscle underneath. Percy’s hands found her bare hips and he pressed his fingers into the softness of her. She raised a hand to one of his wings and for the first time she touched one.

The feathers were softer than she expected, but she couldn’t imagine how they didn’t itch after hours of rubbing against Percy’s skin. Under the feathers the wings were hard with the bone so close to the surface, like a wrist. They suddenly looked much larger than she had ever noticed. Once again Percy shifted them uncomfortably. The wings had only been a source of trouble for him, he couldn’t remember one time when someone had looked at them like this, with quiet awe. He didn’t know what to do with them while Vex satisfied her curiosity.

She kissed him again, softer this time at first but with quickly building intensity. Percy pulled her up against him and his hands wandered her body like hers had on him. Her hands slipped between them and began pulling at the laces of his trousers. When they were loose she slid her hand into them and took Percy in her hand.

He broke away and tilted his head back and moaned. And Vex, a master opportunist, busied herself with leaving a dark hickey on his neck while she pulled his dick from his pants and gave him a few, light, slow strokes.

“Vex,” Percy groaned and his hips stuttered as he tried to keep himself from bucking into her hand.

“Yes darling?” She asked with a teasing lightness to her voice.

“Please?” His voice was hoarse and he was struggling to keep himself from panting.

“Take them off,” she whispered into his ear and moved away from him and over to the bottles on the table. She uncorked the Courage (feeling a little nervous herself, though she wouldn’t admit it) and took a swig from it as she watched Percy undress with approving eyes.

She sauntered back to him and held the bottle out to him. He took it and took a long drink before he set it down and Vex decided she was tired of just looking at him. She put her hands on his chest and slowly backed him up to the bed, kissing him deeply the entire time. The backs of his knees hit the bed and he almost fell back onto it, catching himself with his hands to keep him upright.

She sat on his lap and looped her arms around his neck. She could feel his length between them and she slowly slid against him. Percy moaned into her mouth as he felt her slickness against his cock. “Do you want to take your glasses off?” She asked.

He licked his lips and looked down between them to see her pressed against his cock and then back up to her face where her dark eyes were locked onto his, her lips shiny from the kissing, and hungry, wild look to her. “No, I want to see you,” he answered honestly.

She smiled, “That’s sweet,” she said and her hand wrapped around him again, her thumb brushed over the tip of his cock and his eyes fluttered shut, “but you’ll need to keep your eyes open if you want to see me,” she added lightly.

His bright blue eyes opened again and he smiled and shook his head very slightly, “All you seem to do is tease.”

“I promise, it’s not all I do,” her voice was dripping with sex. She raised up and guided Percy’s cock to where she wanted it and sank down a few inches on him, drawing obscene sounds from them both.

She pulled her lip between her teeth and took more of him into her. Percy started to close his eyes again but Vex’s hand touched his cheek and she said with the barest amount of strain in her voice, “I thought you wanted to watch?”

He might have laughed if she didn’t roll her hips against him with his cock fully inside her now. “Vex,” he groaned and forced his eyes back open to watch her slowly begin to ride him. His hands first found her thighs on either side of him. The muscles in them flexed as she moved and he was careful not to dig his too sharp nails—almost claws—into her. He ran them up her thighs to her hips where he was conscious not to hinder her movements by holding her too tightly, but it helped him avoid being a passive lover and let him thrust up to meet her.

Smoke leeched out from his fingers where he grasped at her hips and Vex’s nails dug into Percy’s shoulder and a small whimper left her lips. Her other hand drifted between them and her thighs twitched when she touched her clit. “Don’t close your eyes,” her voice had a higher pitch than Percy was used to and his fingers pressed into her harder, “you’ll miss the show.”

Vex closed her eyes and threw her head back. She was practically on the edge and she had seen in Percival’s eyes that he wasn’t far either. The idea of him watching her like this only spurred her on. She arched her back, putting her spectacular chest on display for Percy, and moaned his name openly.

There was a quiet rustling and a sudden rush of air that startled her to a stop and when she opened her eyes Percy’s wings surrounded them in a sea of long, white feathers. She noticed a thin, purple smoke that filled the space around them, so light that she almost missed it entirely. Percy’s hand was at the small of her back and suddenly she was under him and his wings were folding against his back.

He used one hand to hold himself over her, still deep inside of her, and he kissed Vex like she was the only thing keeping him alive. Teeth nipped at her lips and tongue, his fingernails—claws—of his other hand were scraping against her hip in the pleasure-pain that sometimes came with sex. And when he started moving again he did so with a force that Vex never would have expected from him.

“Oh gods, Percy,” she moaned loudly and her hand massaged her breast as he fucked into her.

He watched her, not willing to miss the show as she had said, and every small reaction and noise he tucked away for later. For a moment he forgot about how badly he wanted to cum and focused entirely on how much he wanted to please her.

Vex had largely been unsatisfied when a man decided his place was on top of her like this, they rarely showed any skill in it and put all their effort to doing what they wanted instead of what she needed. Percy was the opposite. “Fuck, Percy faster,” she whined and he obliged. “Ha—harder,” she pleaded and he did so. “More,” she begged and he moved the hand from her waist to her clit.

Her mouth fell open, her eyes squeezed shut, her body arched and grew tense and she tightened around him and halfway through saying his name her voice broke into a silent cry. Percy thrust into her twice more and couldn’t hold himself back any longer, spilling inside of her with a long, drawn out moan that was her name.

Vex opened her eyes again when he said her name and grew tense and still because she didn’t want to miss what he looked like either. Percy’s eyes were closed again but Vex didn’t hold it against him, but the thing that made her breath catch in her throat were the huge, white wings that were stretched out on either side of him. They were so much bigger than she had guessed and more beautiful than she ever imagined. He looked like he really might have been a Celestial instead. If someone had told her that he was an angel she wouldn’t have doubted them. This was something like a painting. His mouth parted as he said her name, his eyes closed, there was a sheen of sweat from the heat and their actions that she was sure was mirrored on her, and his wings were stretched out like he was ready to fly away.

Vex had never once in her life seen anything more beautiful.

Percy dropped forward and pressed his head into the bed. His hair tickled her cheek and Vex watched his wings slowly fold back against him. He held himself over her for a moment longer while they caught their breath. He started to notice the ache in his arm that he was bracing himself on and with one final, much softer kiss, he pushed himself up and walked across the room. He pulled a small cloth from the pocket of his pants and he cleaned them both up.

He then collapsed onto the bed beside her and looked at her with lazy, tired eyes. He was lying on his stomach with his arms under his head. Vex had never considered how Percy slept, but it made sense he couldn’t sleep on his back or his side very comfortably.

They talked for a while but eventually they both drifted off to sleep.

For three weeks they explored their new relationship. They spent a lot of time in Vex’s room breaking a sweat from more than the heat, but they also talked and joked and read together. In truth their relationship hadn’t changed so much as something had been added to it. Perhaps this was what made Percy uneasy and was why things happened the way they did.

 

At the beginning Percy was so happy that his affections were being returned that he didn’t really think about everything else. And when Percy’s hunger was, for the most part, sated and he really had time to think about everything that was happening between the two of them he started to grow worried again. The longer he thought about it the worse it became, as it often does.

Vex had signed a contract with him to save her brother. She was not here for him. She left at the end of the month, she came back after three, she spent her time with him, she helped him keep the loneliness at bay, she did everything he asked for in the contract. He had been on both ends of a deal before, never once had the idea of owning a piece of someone or having a piece of him owned by someone else bothered him. It was part of the cost, you gave up something to have what you wanted.

And Vex would have given anything for her brother.

Vex would have given her entire being for him.

And perhaps that’s what this was. She was giving Percy what he wanted because she believed it was the cost for her brother’s life. And it was wrong to hold her like this, to force her to love him.

He was able to cast the thought aside with relative ease at first, after all she didn’t have to do everything he wanted and she had said no before, she was not above telling him she was not in the mood to go out or that she wanted something or didn’t like something else. But as the days went on he found it harder to ignore the nagging piece of his mind that said she was not there for him but she was there for her brother.

And on the last day of the month of their time together Percy slowly crept out of her bed in the early morning.

He dressed in all black, shirt included, and went to his workshop where he kept all of the contracts he had ever signed. And he pulled out the one with Vex’ahlia’s name on it and looked at it for a long time. He read it over and over again but nothing set his mind at ease. So instead he pulled out a fresh piece of parchment, a bottle of black ink, and a quill made from one of his feathers, and he wrote a letter.

He took the contract and the note back to her room and set it on the desk for when she woke. And then he stood beside the bed and looked down at her for just a moment. He tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear, then turned and left without saying a word.

Vex woke hours later and stretched like a cat. It was already hot, though she was used to it at this point. The last few days of the month she barely even noticed. She looked around for Percy but thought he must have already gone to his workshop. She didn’t blame him, she wasn’t sure how she would be able to look at him all day. She never liked saying goodbye but the thought of this one was an unbearable weight on her heart.

She stood and went to put something on before she went to see Percy in his workshop because she wasn’t going to waste their last day together avoiding each other. And when she crossed the room to gather her clothes she saw something on her desk that had not been there the night before.

Vex picked up the parchment and it dawned on her slowly that this was her contract. It couldn’t have been hers because she had left it in Greyskull back in Emon, which meant this was Percy’s copy of it. The piece of paper next to it cleared things up, but not pleasantly.

_Vex’ahlia,_

_You have fulfilled your end of the bargain earlier than your contract stipulated. I asked you to show me what it meant to not be lonely by spending a month here with me after every three months away from me until one of us perished. In less than two years you have done what I thought would take a lifetime, and our lives are long ones._

_I thank you for your lessons and I wish you well on your adventures with your friends and a happy and long life with your brother without interruption from goddesses and such._

_You have been released from your contract early, as you have completed your end early. I have undone the magic binding us together, all you must do is tear it in half._

_Have a safe trip home and if you ever have something you need desperately enough to travel back here, I would not mind if you stumbled into my store again._

_\--Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III_

Vex stared at the letter for a very long time before she set it down and picked up the contract again.

In one simple movement she tore it in half and she felt a mix of freedom and the worst pain she had ever known.

 

Percy avoided his home for the rest of the day. He didn’t want to come back to see her still there before she left, he didn’t want to say goodbye. He also didn’t want to go back and see her gone. If he didn’t go home he could believe she was still there and that she would be back in a few months, but he knew without a doubt she would never return to the Nine Hells unless she was forced to.

He even thought about staying the night somewhere else, but he quickly ruled it out as ridiculous since he had his own bed just a few blocks away. It was still hard to go back though.

He entered through the shopfront, as always, and even there it felt hollow. There were inventions and knick knacks Vex had always toyed with and things she had even helped him build. He could see traces of her on all of them. With an ache he remembered the arrow he meant to give her this time. He thought he could get a good price on it if he sold it, but it felt wrong to sell something he had made for her. Perhaps if she found her way back to the Nine Hells he could give it to her then.

He passed his counter and saw a small scrap of parchment there with the words _Thank you_ written in Vex’s practical but lovely handwriting.

He went upstairs and passed Vex’s room without stopping. He opened the door to his room and stopped in the doorway.

The room had a thin layer of dust from disuse and it didn’t feel familiar. He had spent his nights in Vex’s room and now his room was just an extra room in his house, it no longer belonged to him.

Instead of fighting it he went back to his actual room, Vex’s room, despite knowing how it would hurt.

He turned the handle and he instantly regretted doing so.

He could see Vex lying on the bed asleep, just like she had been that morning. It was like she was really there, like he could touch her, like she would wake up and say she missed him and would kiss him. He could see the soft curves of her body that rose and fell with each breath and the dark hair that spread out across the bed like a creature of its own will looking to take up as much space as it could.

He could see Vex as clearly as anything else in this room and it almost broke him.

He must have made a noise because Vex’s eyes blinked open and she looked around the room to see her white-haired devil standing in the doorway. “Percival,” she said and covered her mouth with the back of her hand as she yawned. “Where have you been, darling? I didn’t think you’d be gone all day.”

“Vex,” he whispered with a broken voice and he walked to the bed but didn’t touch her. He then closed his eyes and shook his head. It was foolish to entertain such ideas, Vex had gone and that was all there was to it.

“Percy,” she said quietly and stood up. She touched his cheek and he opened his eyes to look down at her with the sudden shock of realization, “Percy what’s wrong?”

“I—you were supposed to have gone home,” he whispered.

She smiled and kissed him softly, “You are as much my home as Emon is.”

“It is not a trick, you are freed from your contract.”

“I know, I’ve already done what you asked,” she nodded to the two halves of the parchment on the desk, “but the contract was not what bound me to you.”

Percy raised his hands to cup her cheeks and drew her into a deep kiss. It was a kiss that rivaled all their others in intensity and emotion and hunger. It was a kiss that begged and demanded and wanted and more than anything it was a kiss that loved.

Vex’s hands went to his shirt and began working at the buttons, suddenly as desperate for him as he was for her.

There are different kinds of hunger. There is love, as many of their encounters had been formed from. There is lust, as a good number had been born from. There is pity, pain, anger, an attempt to fix something, which they had no need of yet. And then there is the unnamable. It comes from love, it is born from the heart and happens between soulmates who are overwhelmed with a need for many things. To call it unnamable doesn’t do it justice, it is indescribable, it is unknowable until one feels the desperate pull and the incessant hunger and the roiling feeling in their gut that won’t be satisfied until they are as close as they can be. It is in the clashing of lips and teeth and hands and fingernails. It is the sense of something building inside that threatens never to stop.

Percy’s wings unfurled when Vex had him naked in front of her and they tumbled to the ground, the bed not being what they needed in the moment. Vex had only seen Percy’s wings in their full glory when he came, and now that they were out for her to see she would not let them fold away until she was done with him.

Percy lay on his back with his wings outstretched against the black stone floor that was hot against his skin. Had his wings been folded under him it would have been an uncomfortable position, but with his wings like this it wasn’t only comfortable but incredible erotic to have her straddling his hips with him so exposed to her.

She leaned down to him and her hair fell around them like a curtain and she kissed him again. And when they broke away she kissed him elsewhere. She sucked a new mark onto his neck and Percy moaned and the only thing that kept his hips on the ground was Vex holding him there while she did so.

And when she sat up again she looked down at him, at Percy, her lover, her friend, her personal devil, the man she had been falling in love with since the day she met him. She brushed the hair from his blue eyes and adjusted his glasses so they weren’t so crooked. She couldn’t think of anything witty to say nor anything that could put what she wanted to say into words, so she didn’t say anything. She let her thumb run over his bottom lip and he kissed the pad of her thumb gently. She let her fingers rub against the barely noticeable scruff on his cheeks that he had forgotten to shave that morning. She touched his collar bone, his shoulder, the feathers of his left wing. She brushed against his nipple and his back arched and she scratched her nails lightly down his chest and he said her name.

And all the while the feeling built. The need for one another grew, still no where near satisfied. And Vex took his cock in her hand and her thumb ran over the tip again, like it had their first time, and she gathered the precum there and then licked her thumb clean with a wink. Percy was halfway through a groan when she leaned forward and kissed him again, this time with the slight taste of him on her tongue, and she guided him into her.

She breathed his name as he filled her and she sat up again and rose a few inches before coming back down and moaned again. He filled her perfectly, like he was made for her, and every time it made her breath catch.

Her hand was on his chest, her fingers splayed out on him. They both knew how easily he could have sat up or flipped her over, but it didn’t matter. Vex held all the power in the room and Percy doubted he could even find the will to move under her hand, so he happily let her hold him down. His hands settled on her hips, his sharp nails ghosted over her skin and she shivered and tightened around him and he bit his lip to keep from groaning.

They were breathing hard, a thin sheen of sweat glowed on their skin, and the feeling kept building in them, crying out for more of each other. Vex picked up her pace, drawing desperate sounds from them more often and stealing her breath. Smoke rose from Percy’s fingers and his wings, it seemed to thread through his hair and it fogged his glasses up but didn’t obscure them. It wrapped around Vex, her head thrown back, her body arched out to Percy and begging for him. It was like steam, thin and rising through the room from the heat between them. It was clinging to their skin and there was a faint taste of it when they kissed again.

Vex was leaning forward and kissing him, though they had both lost some of their practiced skill in their desperation and simply wanted their lips on their lover’s, teasing and gentleness be damned. They kissed with teeth and tongue and only paused when their lungs burned for air. One of Vex’s hands found Percy’s and she laced their fingers together and pressed his hand back into the stone. Her other hand moved between them and circled her clit shakily and without rhythm, she was simply trying to catch up to the ever-building feeling, to crash down with Percy and finally get what she needed.

“A-ah, Percy!” She cried out and his grip on her hips grew even tighter as he thrust up to meet her again and _growled_ as he caught her lips with his again and came with her.

Vex’s body trembled as she came down, blinking away the stars that had filled her vision and when she licked her lips she tasted the familiar iron of blood and she reached up with a thumb and touched her lip. It stung a little, likely from Percy nicking it with his teeth, but she didn’t mind. It was proof, like Percy’s hickey. It was something she could leave with if she couldn’t leave with him.

She almost rolled over but stopped herself when she noticed his wings were still stretched out. They had fluttered a handful of times and now lay still like the rest of Percy as he caught his breath. He looked like an angel in the night against the black stone, and when his wings has moved he looked like he was flying. He looked nothing at all like the dangerous devil she had come looking to sell a piece of her soul to so long ago. She did not think he truly looked like an angel, perhaps his wings did, but the smoke still lingered in the air and she knew Percy well enough that angel was a terrible word to describe him. But a good man, perhaps a dark man but good nonetheless, and that was something she could understand.

She kissed his chest and moved down so she could lay her head over his heart and instead of laying on his delicate looking wings she draped herself over his body.

His arms wrapped around her and one of his hands, rough with callouses and nails that sent pleasant shivers down her spine when he slowly drew them along her body, moved up and down her back. “You have to go home,” he said after a long while, “I’m sure your brother is already worried. If you stay much longer I fear we will have visitors looking to rescue you.”

She hummed her agreement quietly and looked up at him. “I want to go back,” she admitted and then slowly added, “but I don’t want to leave you.”

His fingers ran through her hair as he answered, “I know what you mean.”

There was a lull, not an uncomfortable one but one without an answer. Then Vex said, “Do you like it here?”

“It’s all I’ve known,” he said, “I was born here, I’ve lived here, I’ve worked here. There are not many places an Erinyes like me can go.” The corner of his mouth quirked up, “You don’t have to say you like it here, it’s quite terrible.”

“If you could go anywhere, where would you go?”

“With you.” He didn’t miss a beat.

“To Emon?” She pressed.

“If that’s where you were going.”

“Will you then? Will you come with me?”

“I am not sure if having an Erinyes from the Nine Hells at your side would look good for the heroes of Emon,” he teased but Vex could hear how hard it was to say no.

She reached out and touched the feathers on one of his wings, “You’ve said yourself that most people think you’re a Celestial,” she said quietly. She felt Percy shift almost uncomfortably. “I know you aren’t, my friends know you aren’t, but we wouldn’t have to tell the rest. For the most part they wouldn’t ask. Humans especially think they know everything.”

He was quiet for a while, then he asked, “Do you think they would accept me?”

Who? Emon? Her friends? The world? Vex didn’t have the answers. “If not then I’ll deal with them, darling.” She said it lightly but Percy had no doubt that she would, and he had a feeling it would be interesting to watch.

“I’m sure a Celestial would draw quite a bit of attention to you as well. Especially one that smokes and has sharp teeth,” he flashed his teeth and she noted the sharp canines before he said, “and claws,” and dragged his nails along her back, making her shiver.”

“Scanlan has a hat that could make you look like whatever you wanted if you wanted that instead,” she replied.

“I hear it is cold there.”

“I could keep you warm,” she teased and bit his chest lightly.

His smile grew and he said, “You told me that it is dangerous.”

“You could bring your gun that you keep saying you’ll sell but never accept an offer for,” she answered.

“You told me your brother doesn’t like me very much.”

“He doesn’t know you like I do. Somehow I think you would like Keyleth, despite how different you two are.”

“You told me it is lonely.”

“It was,” Vex sat up and looked down at him. “Not anymore.”

She could see that he was halfway torn. She could see that he wanted to go, there was a glimmer in his eyes and his almost questions had been more teasing at the end than anything, but there was hesitation too. Something she could definitely understand, it was not an easy decision. “You told me it’s a nice place.”

“And if I told you I loved you?” She asked quietly, her heart in her throat.

He sat up too and said, “Then I suppose I would follow you across the planes and across every world we came across,” and he kissed her without hesitation or fear.


End file.
